


That's Science!

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game), Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Concussions, Crossover, Gen, Injury, Magic, Multi, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 17:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16371872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Hank Pym really needs to stop messing with interdimensional portals.Trying to hook up Prende's Lantern and Mechanicsburg's Queen's Mirror was a bad call on Agatha's part.Two worlds collide and no amount of SCIENCE!!! is going to make the vein in Nick Fury's forehead stop jumping.





	That's Science!

**Author's Note:**

> This wouldn't leave my head. I had to get at least SOME of it down, because AvAc Hank Pym is 100% a spark. He just. He is.

“Hi!”

Agatha’s disoriented. She is, in fact, a little _too_ disoriented to quite work out who’s yelling at her.

“I didn’t think that was going to work!”

“Professor Pym, maybe we should, like… help them.”

There’s a groaning noise to Agatha’s left. It sounds like Tarvek. At least she knows where he is now.

“I’m going to get Claire.”

“Wait, Janet, maybe—”

“Nope! Sorry Tony, but we need medical right now!”

“Actually, I was going to suggest you get Strange, too.”

“Oh. That’s actually a good idea. Be back in a jiffy!”

Agatha manages to get her eyes cracked open enough to make out some blurry shapes. Something big moves to her left, and she hears Gil say, “Where the hell are we?”

It’s slurred, and that’s definitely worrying, but at least he’s alive.

“Avengers Academy!” The first voice says. He’s speaking English. All the unfamiliar voices have been, Agatha realizes. She’s not sure why it took so long to process that. “Do you have a concussion?”

“Probably?” Gil says, and he sounds confused. That’s not good. At least Agatha thinks it isn’t good. Her brain feels foggy.

“That’s not good, but it’s probably to be expected,” one of the voices said. It’s not the excitable voice, or the girl. “The portal kinda blew up. Think you can stand?”

“Yeah,” Gil says.

“Coolio… get over to the bench, I guess. Hey, Professor Pym! Help me get these guys to the exam tables.”

It takes a minute or two, but then there are hands on Agatha, and one of them feels like it’s covered in… metal? It carries her over to a thinly-matted table. She’s got enough of her wits about her to guess that she’s _probably_ better off just going along with it for now. Gil sounds lucid, and he’s not protesting it, so it’s most likely safe, yeah?

There’s a sound of a door, and then more voices.

A _lot_ more voices.

“What did you _do?”_

“Wait, Hope, please don’t freak out,” the young man says.

“Were you messing with the fabric of time-space again?” ‘Hope’ demands.

“When is he _not?”_ Someone mutters, just barely loud enough for Agatha to make out.

“Oh, don’t _start_ , Amadeus,” someone snaps.

“Could you all just stop?” A young woman asks. “Strange, where do you wanna start?”

“I’m seeing head wounds on at least three people,” ‘Strange’ says. “I’ll start on those, and you start with more triage? You can hand off the basic first aid to Cho.”

“Wait, why me?” Oh. It’s the voice that had been ‘Amadeus’ earlier.

“Stark is covered in dust, and you’ve got more medical than Hope,” Strange tells him. “And I think Hope is getting ready to read Pym the riot act.”

“I am _not_ ,” Hope says. “But I do want to know why the hell I wasn’t invited here for this. You know I’m good at quantum entanglement problems!”

“To be fair,” Stark says. “We weren’t planning on testing anything this early. We were just throwing around some ideas and… got carried away.”

“Janet was here.”

“Oh, I was just trying to get Tony’s opinions on our Halloween costumes,” Janet says. “We’re doing bestie costumes this time. It’s gonna be fun!”

This is about the point that Agatha loses track of the conversation, because there are slim, cool fingers feeling over her head.

“Hey, can you open your eyes for me?” A young woman asks. Agatha tracks through the voices she’s heard so far, and she’s pretty sure this is the ‘Claire’ they mentioned. Agatha obliges.

“I think we might need the Cradle for this one,” Strange says. Agatha doesn’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound good.

“Soooooo, what are your names?” Janet asks.

Gil’s the one that talks, which is pretty good, since Agatha’s vision is swimming. Hm. That’s bad. “I’m Gil. That’s Agatha. Tarvek. Moloch. Zeetha. Violetta. Dimo. Higgs. Uh… I’m not seeing Maxim and Oggie so I guess they weren’t close enough to get caught, and they were closer than everyone else…”

“Close enough to what?” Tony asks. At least, Agatha thinks it’s Tony. Earlier context is proving frustratingly hard to hold on to.

“Agatha was the one doing most of it, but we were examining… an old artifact with unique capabilities,” Gil says. Prende’s Lantern, Agatha remembers, or at least what’s left of it. And then the Mirror in Mehcanicsburg, which-- “We were running an experiment involving another artifact that seemed to have some similar elements.”

“Did either of these artifacts have anything to do with time or space manipulation?” Hope asks.

Gil’s silence is enough.

“Well, that might explain some things,” Tony says. “Professor Pym? You okay?”

“Did you look at the readings yet?” Pym asks. He doesn’t sound _subdued_ , exactly, but he’s less excited than before. “Hope, Tony, Amadeus—”

“Busy!” Amadeus calls over, and Agatha flinches.

Claire’s hands leave her head, and then there’s some quiet murmuring from her and what Agatha _thinks_ is Strange.

“Those are weird,” Tony says, voice a little further away from before. “That’s… completely different from all the other multiversal data.”

“No,” Hope says. She sounds a little angry. “No, you did _not_ just—”

“They’re not from our multiverse!” Pym crows. “All of our other portals were to other dimensions in our own multiverse! Parallels and divergent timelines! But _they’re_ from another multiverse entirely, with a completely different set of themes and people and probably even rules of physics!”

“Do you have _any_ idea how dangerous it was to do that?” Hope demands. “This is risking structural collapse of both our multiverse _and_ theirs!”

“I know! Isn’t it amazing?”

“It’s dangerous, and unnecessary, and unethically risks the lives of people who didn’t consent to be endangered!”

“That’s science!”

“No, it’s not!”

Agatha tries to ignore the pounding in her head.

Smooth palms with only the barest suggestion of a callous cradle her chin, and the voice she’s so far identified as Strange talks from very close. “Agatha, right? You can hear me, correct?”

Agatha makes a vague noise of assent.

“You have a concussion, and of your group, you are currently at highest risk of intracranial bleeding. From what I can tell, your body normally has a higher tolerance to head trauma, but the rules of our universes are different and your body is struggling to adjust. If I use magic to readjust your body’s natural state to what is considered normal for you and your dimension, there’ll be a much lower chance of permanent damage. This isn’t… a standard procedure, and I’m unsure of how well you can consent, but it’s the most likely way to help you.”

Agatha wonders about that. She manages to find her tongue well enough to “Gil?”

“He’s been doing magic,” Gil confirms. “I… they seem to be good people, but I don’t know how much I trust any procedure I don’t understand myself.”

“Mm…” Agatha blinks, and it feels like it takes forever to open her eyes again. “I tr’st Gil.”

There’s a long moment of relative silence, and then Gil finally says, “Do it.”

Strange hesitates.

But then, there’s a green light, and Agatha closes her eyes, and then there’s an odd sensation that _feels_ like how mint tastes.

The throbbing in Agatha’s head fades.

“Well?” Gil asks, his voice clearer than it has been. A lot of sounds are clearer now, the low hum of machines and the buzzing of an insect and distant, quiet voices that sound like Dimo and Zeetha hissing at whoever’s trying to give them medical care.

Agatha blinks, and the room is still swimming a little, but not as much. “Mm. Hello. I feel better.”

Gil smiles at that, nervous and relieved, and then his eyes drop. “Er, maybe you should…”

He gestures at his own neck, and Agatha realizes he’s talking about the locket. Oh. Yes, in a world with different rules and head injuries like she just had, that’s probably not the best thing to be lugging around. She takes it off and puts it in her pocket.

“Miss…” Strange says, and Agatha suddenly remembers that there are strangers in the room. This one is her age, with dark hair shot through with streaks of white, and clothes that look like… well, look _odd_ , mostly, with a very eye-catching scarf.

She catches herself after a moment and says, “Heterodyne.”

Strange nods. “Can you follow my finger with your eyes? Don’t move your head.”

Agatha does so, and tries to keep track of what’s going on in the room around her as Strange continues his checkup. He’s already done enough that Agatha’s inclined to default to his expertise, despite the instinctive desire to argue that she doesn’t need help, she’s the _Heterodyne!_

Heterodyne doesn’t mean anything here, but it doesn’t take a lot of thought to figure out why.

“Violetta, stop faking,” Tarvek mutters, somewhere off behind her.

“Bed rest would be best, considering the other damage your body took,” Strange says. There’s still a glowing coming from his hands. “Even with what I did, I’d say time spent in the Cradle would be a good idea, too. It would cut down your recovery time, at least.”

“What _is_ the Cradle?” Agatha asks.

“A highly advanced piece of medical technology that we unfortunately need here on a regular basis,” Claire says. She’s over with Zeetha, sewing up a wound on Zeetha’s right forearm. “We mostly use it for open wounds and broken bones, since its main feature is accelerating cell growth in a way that doesn’t cause cancer. Head wounds are trickier, but it still helps a lot.”

“Could you… explain how it works to me?” Agatha says, able to hear the interest in her own voice. She hisses in pain as a swab dipped in what she _assumes_ is alcohol is dabbed over a large scrape on her shoulder. Strange pauses long enough for her to settle down again, and then continues.

“That’s classified,” Amadeus says. Agatha twists her head to look at him, and he waves at her before going back to a laceration on Moloch’s cheek. He’s smaller than she expected, and quite pale.

Moloch is glaring at her. That’s probably fair.

“So, you guys students or something?”

The voice comes from the direction of a small huddle of people at a desk on the other side of the room, and it takes Agatha a moment to pinpoint the speaker. The voice is… Janet? She thinks? But the speaker is a tiny, tiny person on the shoulder of the young man in the group.

She is almost immediately distracted by the translucent screen in front of them. Holographic technology, something she’s used herself before, but this seems capable of details and fineness that she hasn’t yet seen anywhere in her own world.

“Graduated a while back,” Gil says, as evasive as being Baron had taught him he sometimes had to be. “So did Tarvek.”

“I had to leave university for my own safety,” Agatha adds.

“Military,” Higgs says. Dimo and Moloch toss in their agreement on that.

Violetta hesitates, and then says, “I had a non-standard education.”

There’s an odd strain in the room at that, and Agatha can’t quite figure out what it is.

“I joined the circus instead of going to university,” Zeetha says, because she is, in fact, Zeetha, and Zeetha savors the looks of shock that people get on their faces when she says things like that. She’s actually talked to Agatha about it in detail. It was an educational night.

“Oh, like Clint!” Janet says, and Agatha has the delightful experience of watching Zeetha’s face flash through emotions before suddenly turning to… interest.

“And you?” Agatha asks, deliberately ignoring the look on Zeetha’s face.

“You’re in the basement of Avengers Academy,” Hope says. Oh. She looks as no-nonsense as she sounds. “I’m sorry about… all this.”

She glances sidelong at Hank, who is pointing at information on the screen and glancing back and forth between it and Tony’s concerned face with a look of glee that Agatha’s seen on many, many Sparks.

It’s a look that usually isn’t safe, but it’s almost always a hell of a lot of fun and a chance to learn something new and exciting.

There’s a spike of pain in her head, and Agatha thinks that maybe new and exciting needs to be put on hold until her body’s not reacting badly to the local universe.

The door opens suddenly, and a young, dark man stumbles in. His hair is wet. “Hey, I got the text. Still need me?”

“We’re wrapping up, but the redheads still need to be looked at,” Strange says. He takes Agatha’s arm and tells her to speak up if she feels anything strange, and then starts moving it around.

“Hi,” Agatha hears him say as he approaches Violetta. “I’m Sam Wilson. Pararescue.”

“Violetta. I don’t need help, I can—”

“See, everyone says that, but an outside look is always helpful,” Sam says, and despite the brightness in his voice, there’s a strange underlying threat and sternness and Agatha actually _twitches_. It’s not anything Sparky, just practiced and something she’s never encountered before. The closest she can think of as a comparison is when Lilith used to have to put her to bed when she stayed up too late trying to read everything she could, even stymied by the locket.

Amadeus snorts quietly. “What, never heard medic voice before?”

Agatha looks at him, and then around at her friends. Tarvek and Violetta both seem as surprised as she was, but Gil just has an eyebrow raised, the ‘military boys’ all look nonplussed at best, and Zeetha is… pursing her lips and not meeting anyone’s eyes. She kind of looks like she’s about to laugh.

“So, Claire texted you?” Tony asks. Oh. Tony’s the young one in the corner. Okay.

“She texted the medic groupchat,” Sam says.

“There’s a medic groupchat?” Tony asks. He sounds surprised. He looks surprised. This is oddly funny.

“Look at the state of events on this campus and tell me that it isn’t necessary,” Claire says, voice flat. “Remember what it was like before I dragged Strange into actually getting medical services set up?”

“That’s fair,” Tony says. “Harsh, but fair.”

“So, can I get a look at—” Gil starts. He does not, in fact, finish.

This is because the door slides open at that very moment, and a very angry man walks through and says, in a voice that isn’t quite yelling but is all the more unnerving for it, “Pym, what the _hell_ have you done this time?”

“Nick! I punched a hole into another multiverse and these folks fell through!” Pym says, apparently immune to the intimidating aura being directed very explicitly at him. He’s still grinning. He even does a little dance. “It’s science!”

“Yeah,” ‘Nick’ grinds out between grit teeth. “I can see that.”

**Author's Note:**

> No idea if I'm going to be continuing this but hey. At least I got it written.


End file.
